


Irrefutable

by imaginarycircus



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M, Selkies, So Married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-02
Updated: 2011-09-02
Packaged: 2017-10-23 09:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginarycircus/pseuds/imaginarycircus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Danny is plagued by an irrational fear that Steve will leave him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Irrefutable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheafrotherdon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/gifts).



> This is a birthday gift for Cate! ♥ It's a very small payment on the very great debt I owe her.
> 
> Very great thanks to stellarmeadow and sunhawk for beta reading. ♥

It was the laziest sort of Saturday and the heat laid them out on the beach like seals soaking in the soporific sunshine. Their hands were touching, but barely; it was too hot to twine fingers or caress.

Danny reached past the edge of his beach towel with his other hand and dug his fingertips down into the sand where it was cooler. He looked at Steve, an expense of tanned flesh, the blues and greens of his tattoos like abstract slats of color, blurring into one and other in the dazzling noon light. Danny originally thought the tattoos were overkill, but now they were part of the canvas of Steve’s body, part of the complete picture, part of what Danny adored more than anything else in the world. The colors also reminded Danny of Steve’s eyes and their ever-shifting blue greenness, and always of the ocean.

Danny sat up and nudged Steve and headed for the water. He knew it would please Steve and Danny had absorbed all the heat he could stand. He craved the coolness of the water washing over his parched flesh, but more than that he needed to touch Steve without feeling like his fingers were in danger of melting or scorching.

The waves that lapped at Danny’s toes were blissfully cold and wet. Steve said nothing, just stood next to Danny and eased himself into the water matching his pace, until they were both waist deep. They grasped slippery hands beneath the surface and Danny marveled that this practically insane man was his anchor, kept him sane, kept him safe, kept him from drifting off into the howling winds of the world.

Steve let go of Danny’s hand and tossed a smile at him before diving into water. Danny had dreamed a few nights ago that Steve had gone down to the water and turned into a sleek-bodied seal and disappeared off into the deep. It had torn Danny’s heart to watch the dark shape slip away from him with such speed and grace. His chest thrummed with an echoing ache watching Steve dive through waves.

Danny remained standing, watching Steve swim, making sure those powerful tattooed arms kept slicing through the water. But he was thinking back to when he was small; his grandmother used to tell him stories while they did the dishes together after a big family dinner. It was always Danny’s job to dry and he never minded, even though he put on a show of complaining in front of his siblings so they wouldn’t know there was anything special up for grabs.

His grandmother normally had all of east Jersey in her voice, muting certain consonants, and elongating some vowels, but when she told the stories that her Scottish gran had told, her voice grew soft and brogue-ish with a slight roll to her r’s. The accent was heavier if she’d had a small scotch after dinner before insisting on doing the dishes. She always argued that Danny’s mother cooked and she could do the damn dishes and they should all be grateful.

The light in the kitchen of Danny’s childhood had been tinted yellow and the plates had been white with blue clover circling the edge. Real China, so Danny had known to be careful when drying each piece. His gran’d worn her hair in a bun low on the nape of her neck. Her hair, once blonde, had gone white. Her eyes had been as blue as berries and she’d shoot Danny sharp little glances as she told him about wild creatures and the fair folk, and tales of all sorts. But the story Danny usually begged to hear was about the selkies, the seals who could turn into people for the briefest of moments and then had to leave their beloved human for seven years before they could come back for a short time. The bittersweetness of it broke his heart in the best way and he couldn’t hear the story enough times. He wished now he’d recorded her telling it, but she was gone and so were her stories. He was waiting until Grace was a little older before watching The Secret of Roan Inish and sharing the other stories with her.

Danny shivered and when Steve came close Danny clung to him as they went under water together. When they broke the surface Steve was laughing, his powerful arms around Danny’s waist.

Danny dove into a kiss, almost knocking Steve back into the water again. Steve seemed to be used to Danny’s sudden fits of passion though and went along with it. Their lips tasted of salt and sunblock and the faintest hints of lime and beer.

Words ached to pour from Danny’s mouth, so much so that his neck muscles tightened with their unuttered weight, and the strain of them trying to escape, but he’d never said anything like that to Steve before. They didn’t use endearments. They used their hands and mouths to say everything without spoken language, but Danny knew the power and import of words. Words make things real, concrete. Irrefutable.

“What?” Steve’s eyelashes were in dark clumps, impossibly long curves, accentuating his impossibly beautiful eyes. In many ways Steve was impossible and that’s what worried Danny, made him fear he was part of a fairytale.

“I love you, Steve.”

Steve’s eyes flicked down to the water, his expression closed, and Danny was gripped by fear that Steve would shed his human skin and disappear for seven years. He reached out to hang onto him to keep him present.

Steve licked his lips and looked up at Danny, right into Danny’s eyes. He didn’t say anything and Danny realized he couldn’t say the words back, but he noted the telltale tightening in Steve’s throat that made his Adam’s apple bob hard when he swallowed. Steve shook his head as if disappointed in himself, but Danny shushed him.

“Hey. Neither of us is going anywhere, right? We have all the time we need. There’s no rush.” He stroked the dark stubble along the line of Steve’s jaw and pulled him down into a kiss. He wasn’t hurt that Steve couldn’t say it back, because he knew it was only a matter of time. And he had the luxury of patience and faith in what was true and irrefutable.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos make my day, but concrit is always welcome.


End file.
